S2 A1 Assignment | Reflective Questions: Christian Ethics and the Other

West urges us to practice Christian ethics with our whole body and not just with our brain. That is, taking disruptive ethical action by speaking out with our voices and making change with our hands by actively working to disrupt and dismantle the dominant systems that normalize injustice. This form of disruption becomes a faithful ethical practice that refuses neutrality when people are harmed.

De La Torre raises the ante by insisting that ethical insight emerges most clearly from those who live at the margins of power. Learning from the edges – or the extreme conditions – removes any ambiguity about power imbalance and its impacts on marginalized lives. We see social systems more clearly at the margins because those living there feel the consequences more directly. De La Torre calls for moral reflection to begin at the margins with the lived experiences of those most affected by injustice.

How might your experiences of "otherness" and understanding of your social location influence your approach to building collaborations across boundaries of difference in Christian ethics? What challenges and opportunities do you foresee in this process?

My daily life is located amid white male privilege and prosperity. This is my de facto starting point. Within that sphere, I experience “otherness-lite” in my interface with dominant and marginalized contexts and people. That is, I no longer live on the margins of poverty, injustice, or being perceived as “other.” My deep experience with empathy, listening, and understanding other people’s lives can only take me so far into lives that are not mine. It’s a real limitation that I used to claim I could transcend. I can’t.

What can I bring to this work then? Skills I’ve honed through a lifetime’s experience: humility, curiosity, compassion, and imagination. The opportunities of my social location are clear: I have “extreme agency” that can open doors, start conversations, attract resources, and enlist help. Working across boundaries no longer frightens me. The discomfort goes away. The occasional awkwardness is easily tolerated. The challenges are also clear: sustaining energy, carving out time, working through pain, keeping up with change, staying relevant.

How does West's "disruptive" approach to Christian ethics challenge traditional methods?

West’s approach challenges the lie that “we are beyond that now”. She argues that “clear thinking”  or ethical purity is not an indicator that we have solved the problem when practices and systems are still in place and continue to demean and harm those on the margins. Christian ethics cannot be abstract. Those on the margins should inform the larger concepts of ethics, creating a dialogue rather than a monologue. In so doing, we move beyond charity to liberation, freeing ourselves and others from the systems that perpetuate poverty, racism, heterosexism, ableism and violence towards women. 

What insights does De La Torre offer about doing ethics from the margins? How might this reshape our ethical thinking?

God is for the poor/marginalized. If we are to imitate God, we must be for the marginalized. Jesus’s life and actions shows us how this is so and how this is done. If we are to be liberated from sin then we must be in dialogue with those most affected by oppression, the sin of society. Observing from below unmasks the biases of the privileged. Woke, what the right cannot stand. Colonists/powered people write the history/story. We need to understand history from the “underside”, to understand how systems of oppression have developed, how they are perpetuated and how they must be dismantled. 

How might your experiences of "otherness" and understanding of your social location influence your approach to building collaborations across boundaries of difference in Christian ethics? What challenges and opportunities do you foresee in this process? 

As a lesbian, my experience of coming out and the consequences of doing so bring me into a “solidarity with the least among us.” I have gained insight into the structures that oppress all others on the margins. I am able to recognize how laws, social attitudes, and scripture are used by those in power. At the same time, my whiteness gives me privilege. There is a relativity to oppression. Because I am white, much of the time I am in the power position. The challenge is for me is to be vigilant about recognizing that privilege, making sure I do not continue to perpetuate harm with it, remaining in dialogue with others on the margins and working to dismantle the systems that create and maintain those margins.

Shiree Dyson

Lesson1 A - Christian Ethics and the Other

Christine Ethics

March 11, 2026

1. How does West's "disruptive" approach to Christian ethics challenge traditional methods?

West’s disruptive approach begins with stating that the experience you choose to examine sets the terms for what becomes invisible and when it does not. She asks readers to consider the story of Maria Gonzalez a woman subjected to poverty, sexual harassment, state power, and sexual identity stigma, simultaneously. Through a traditional Christian ethics lens, her situation could be viewed as charity and through a policy lens as workforce reform. Each viewpoint produces different moral claims and outcomes. Both of which still marginalize her experience and lack accountability by the system from which it was created. West disrupts this by refusing to separate theory from practice. These standard approaches treat abstract moral principles as the starting point, and then apply them to real-life cases. West flips this approach, beginning with the real-life stories of Maria, Yvonne, and Florence, which must be centralized first. Their experience must not be excluded and the method used determines where the power lies in solving the problem.

2. What insights does De La Torre offer about doing ethics from the margins? How might this reshape our ethical thinking?

De la Torre’s position is that ethics must begin where suffering is most visible. Similar to West in that you start with the story of those suffering/othered. Reality must be viewed through the eyes of the marginalized, then you reflect, pray, act, and reassess. Start on the ground, analyze social structures, and bring this into the theoretical. Those at the bottom know all too well how the structures work more than those at the top. Ethics cannot remain neutral; it must become a political act because whoever gets to define morality also gets to define who suffers. Again, reminding me of the proverb: "Until the lion learns to write, every story will glorify the hunter." If your ethical framework never challenges your own station and why, then you must ask who am I really serving.

3. How might your experiences of "otherness" and understanding of your social location influence your approach to building collaborations across boundaries of difference in Christian ethics? What challenges and opportunities do you foresee in this process?

Honestly, when I think about this question, I do not feel a desire to build collaborations across boundaries. And the absence of that desire is not apathy but the result of accumulated weight. Growing up as an American-born Black woman, I was taught at an early age to be proud of my identity and history. At the same time, I was taught to “police” how I showed up in public. Both of these lessons existed simultaneously, and it is the space from which I still operate.  

The othering has always existed. I grew up on the boundaries of society…Black neighborhoods, Black schools, Black churches, a Black college, and later moving to a then Black city, Oakland. De La Torre would say this is where ethics must begin, with the lived experience of those who carry the weight of Otherness. The emotional labor is real and exhausting, and I am not available. Do not ask me to explain what has been made visible time and time again.

Right now, in this moment in my life, I am not reaching across the aisle. Reaching across assumes both sides have done the work. Show me where you are disrupting the destructive patterns of behavior and belief systems. The opportunity I am open to witnessing is accountability in action…real, documented, consistently sustained accountability.

Forum Response Week Two: Otherness and Christian Ethics

When I read this week’s material about “otherness,” I found myself thinking about some very early memories. Some of the first times I remember feeling different actually happened inside my own family. As a child I was often called “goofy.” It wasn’t playful teasing the way people sometimes mean it. It made me feel like I was somehow outside the norm of the family. There were also moments when I became aware that I was treated differently because I was not the biological daughter in the household. Even though I didn’t have language for it at the time, those experiences made me aware of what it feels like to be marked as different.

Because of that, I often looked for belonging in other places. Church became one of those places. Friendships did too. But even there, the sense of being different sometimes followed me. In school I was known as the “church girl.” I carried my Bible and tried to live according to what I had been taught in church. To my classmates that seemed strange. At the time I thought of it simply as being faithful, but looking back I can see that those experiences shaped how aware I became of identity and difference.

Reading Miguel De La Torre this week helped me connect those experiences with ethics in a new way. His idea that ethics must be done “from the margins” really resonated with me. When you have lived through moments of exclusion or misunderstanding, you tend to notice things other people may overlook. You develop a sensitivity to injustice and to the ways people can be pushed outside the circle of belonging.

Traci West makes a similar point in emphasizing that Christian ethics must take seriously the lived experiences of people who deal with racism, sexism, and other forms of marginalization. Ethics cannot stay at the level of theory. It has to take real human lives into account.

Those ideas show up for me in small, everyday moments. I remember one situation at a playground where I had to address a safety issue with a parent whose child was doing something dangerous. The conversation started off tense. But later, when I slowed down and listened to what she was dealing with at home, the entire tone of the interaction shifted. What started as frustration became understanding.

Experiences like that remind me how important listening is as an ethical practice. When people feel seen and heard, it changes the entire dynamic of a situation. Reflecting on this week’s material helped me realize that my own experiences of feeling “othered” have shaped how I approach people now. I pay attention to who feels welcome, who feels overlooked, and who might need space to tell their story.

For me, Christian ethics is not only about what we believe but about how we show up in those everyday encounters. The experiences that once made me feel different have also shaped my commitment to helping create spaces where others feel that they belong.

References

De La Torre, Miguel A. Doing Christian Ethics from the Margins. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2014.

West, Traci C. Disruptive Christian Ethics: When Racism and Women’s Lives Matter. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006.

M. Cross

Introduction to

 Christian Ethics

Dr. Lisa Asedillo

Lesson 2, Assign 2

Reflection

How does West’s “disruptive” approach to Christian ethics challenge traditional methods?

These are clearly 2 different approaches. While the traditional method is founded on and uses scripture, church traditions, and commonly recognized morality, while Traci West’s methods encourages starting with a person’s experiences as a whole. West’s approach deals with the person while tradition approaches from a set of rules. West considers what a person has been through while traditions says this is how you should act regardless of what you’ve been through. In my opinion, tradition overlooks the individual encouraging an appearance.

What insights does DeLaTorre offer about doing ethics from the margins? How might this reshape our ethical thinking?

De La Torre believes ethics begins with those who are marginalized, their struggles and difficulties because God can more clearly be seen via the lens of the oppressed. Employing his approach should lead to action on behalf of those who are oppressed. He rejects the Euro centered moral system as it is based in /on their viewpoint.

Employing De La Torre’s methodology on ethics requires seeing from a viewpoint you may not have considered. Though I may have a viewpoint on what is moral and ethical, having lived a different life, the vantage point of the oppressed would not agree. I believe when applying ethics, considering the marginalized creates a more universally applicable ethical code.

How might your experiences of “otherness” and understanding of your social location influence your approach to building collaborations across boundaries of difference in Christian ethics? What challenge and opportunities do you foresee in this process?

Not realizing my personal ethical leaning is more toward De La Torre’s regarding the experiences of the marginalized, because of my own otherness, I find myself more open to hearing and listening. I try to put myself in another’s place and asking what I would do if in their situation, what would be my moral code. Once people realize they are being heard, even if for a moment, they are no longer in the margin but the mainstream and what they think and believe is of value. That person feels they are part of the norm and have something to contribute. They become valuable.

What challenges and opportunities do you foresee in this process?  

I don’t really see a challenge other than trust which has to be built. It requires truthfulness, consistence, and moving outside the normal circle. Being careful not to impose personal beliefs but working toward commonality. Common ground is where it starts. Start with the same rather than the different.

  1. How does West's "disruptive" approach to Christian ethics challenge traditional methods?

West emphasizes a conversational form of ethics that begins with the direct experiences of marginalized/oppressed peoples then looks to what Christianity ideally views as a just society. Rather than a legalistic approach, West encourages us to “recognize the necessity to shift all the cultural norms that generate those problems” that create inequity. In emphasizing conversation, she also encourages pluralism in that this approach does not seek to Christianize society, rather to coexist with other religious and non-religious communities so that ethics center life and liberation for everyone, not just Christians.

  2. What insights does De La Torre offer about doing ethics from the margins? How might this reshape our ethical thinking?

Many of our problems stem from the normalization of morality that excludes the people who become marginalized. In placing giving the marginalized epistemological privilege, we are able to consider the ethics of politics and systems that have historically been excluded.

  3. How might your experiences of "otherness" and understanding of your social location influence your approach to building collaborations across boundaries of difference in Christian ethics? What challenges and opportunities do you foresee in this process?

While I’m not necessarily practicing Christian ethics, as a Buddhist, I have noted that my queerness, transness, disability, class, and ethnicity in a ministry that is predominantly cisgender, heterosexual, male, upper-middle class, able-bodied, and Japanese or Japanese-American have created multiple complex obstacles for me to navigate even expressing the need to have conversations about Buddhist ethics in my community. It has been far easier for me to collaborate with people, generally women, from other religious traditions in discussing and implementing ethical practices that challenge harmful politics and structures of domination. I believe that most Buddhist Churches of America (BCA) ministers have experienced a degree of privilege throughout their lifetimes that shields them from even having to personally struggle with ethical questions. Lately, however, I have managed to find others in my community—though they predominantly not ministers—who are much more willing to have conversations about and implementing ways of practicing ethics.

West’s disruption to Christian ethics lies in her centering of the particular, listening to people’s real-life, specific, individual stories. She then puts these alongside the general ethical themes (eg poverty, charity…) and envisions a dialog between the two. Her primary goal is an ethics that promotes the wellbeing of all people. And an ethics that takes into consideration the very particulars of all people, especially those at the margins. She emphasizes that we all have a home point of view that we must take into consideration when we analyze a situation ethically.

Like West, De La Torre grounds ethical analysis in the specific, in the community, in what he calls praxis, and contrasts this to Eurocentric ethics which begins with a  disembodied “truth.” In advocating ethics from the margins De La Torre reminds us that Christ is not only with the marginalized but is the marginalized, and as Christians if we want to do this work following Christ then this is where we must start. (This makes me think that perhaps this view of working from the margins isn’t so radical after all. It’s  what it was from the beginning and is what we should/could return to.) De La Torre gives us a very specific definition of sin: sin is the product of power and privilege of one group through domination of others. Sin is what puts people at the margins and our work as Christians is to mitigate that oppression. He also distinguishes between charity – helping the oppressed – and working to change the systems of oppression that create a marginalized community in the first place, the former being more comfortable to the dominant culture the latter being something that threatens their privileged space.

One thing that comes to mind as I contemplate both these writers, is that Jesus taught by parable, by story, grounding his teaching in the specific, in the individual, as these writers are both advocating.

I can approach my work of building collaborations across boundaries by first recognizing my own privileged home point of view, as a white, educated woman of means. And I can try to see each person I encounter as an individual with a specific story, history, and home point of view without categorizing or stereotyping or judging. The challenges for me are to continue to educate myself about the nondominant histories and narratives—to do my own work—and to listen closely to those I encounter without framing their story from my point of view. The opportunities are immense, to begin to understand others in their full humanity and broaden my understanding of the world.

Leonard Bailey

Christian Ethics

Reflective Questions:  Christian Ethics and the Other

One thing that stood out to me about Traci West’s idea of “disruptive” Christian ethics is how it pushes against the more traditional way ethics is usually discussed. A lot of traditional Christian ethics focuses on rules or abstract ideas about morality. West challenges that by starting with the real experiences of people who are dealing with oppression, especially women and marginalized communities. Her approach is “disruptive” because it forces Christians to pay attention to systems like racism, sexism, and poverty and ask how faith should respond to those realities, not just talk about morality in theory.

De La Torre makes a similar point about doing ethics from the margins. He argues that people who live on the margins often understand systems of power better because they experience them directly. Instead of only listening to scholars or people in positions of power, he suggests we should center the voices of those who are usually ignored. That really reshapes how we think about ethics because it changes whose perspective we start with.

Thinking about my own experiences with “otherness,” I realize that where you stand in society definitely affects how you see things. Our background and experiences shape how we read scripture, understand justice, and work with others. Building collaboration across differences can be challenging because people bring different perspectives and assumptions. But it can also be a good opportunity to learn from each other and build a more honest and inclusive approach to Christian ethics.

Deborah Anderson

CRC, Christian Ethics, Dr. Asedillo

Class 2, Reflection on Other

March 13, 2026

1.Traci West’s “disruptive” approach to Christian ethics challenges traditional methods by changing where ethical reflection begins and whose voices are centered. Instead of starting with abstract moral principles developed by privileged scholars, West argues that ethics should begin with the lived experiences of marginalized people, especially women of color and survivors of violence.

Rather than preserving social order, West believes Christian ethics should disrupt and challenge unjust structures. This is where life is, on the margins, and so Christian ethics becomes more honest about harm and more faithful to the Gospel’s call to justice.

What I found compelling in West’s approach is her insistence that Christian ethics should not simply explain the world but disrupt injustice within it. That resonates with my understanding of the Gospel, which consistently centers the voices and experiences of those pushed to the margins.

I think disruptive ethics would change things by shifting whose experiences shape our moral thinking. If Christian ethics began with the lives of people who experience racism, sexism, and violence, ethical conversations would look very different. Instead of focusing primarily on abstract principles, we would pay closer attention to the realities of harm and injustice that people live with every day.

This approach could also change how churches respond to social issues. Rather than maintaining comfort or order, disruptive ethics would push Christian communities to listen more deeply, question systems that benefit some while harming others, and take more active steps toward justice. So, ethics would become less about preserving tradition and more about participating in God’s work of restoring dignity and humanity to those who have been marginalized. Isn’t this what we are called to do?

2. De La Torre suggests that doing Christian ethics from the margins means beginning ethical reflection with the lived experiences of people who struggle against poverty, racism, and other forms of oppression. For those on the margins, ethical decisions are most often shaped by surviving—not thriving-- within unjust systems rather than abstract moral theories that have largely been developed from positions of privilege.

Reading this pushed me to think about how easily ethical conversations can stay theoretical when they are not grounded in real human experience. And when choosing between medicine and groceries, theory is not helpful. I learned the most about justice and compassion by listening to people’s stories—hearing about the impossible choices someone makes when they cannot afford housing, or the exhaustion of someone working multiple jobs and still struggling to survive or the dignity people try to hold onto in the midst of struggle. De La Torre reminds me that ethical reflection must begin with listening to these realities.

3. My experiences of “otherness” have shaped the way I approach collaboration across differences. One experience that deeply influenced me was a painful divorce and custody battle earlier in my life. I found myself caught between traditional male power structures and a cultural backlash prolific in the second wave of the women’s movement—as if the message was, “So you think you’re liberated? We’ll show you.” The court’s decision left me feeling powerless and unheard within a system that seemed to privilege authority and hierarchy over truth. That experience placed me, for a time, on the margins and gave me a deeper awareness of how easily people’s voices can be dismissed when they lack power within a system. I am a much better listener for it.

One challenge in this process is that conversations across differences can surface discomfort, defensiveness, or mistrust. Yet the opportunity is that this kind of honesty deepens our ethical understanding and helps the church practice a more faithful commitment to justice, humility, and shared humanity. We know this is just where the church should be.

Amanda Weaver

How does West's "disruptive" approach to Christian ethics challenge traditional methods?

West’s approach to Christian ethics challenges traditional methods by insisting that ethics is concrete and grounded in individual experience. West argues for a dialogue that does not just center individual experience instead of generic concepts but also examines the overlapping and interlocking layers of that experience, such as race/ethnicity, socio-economic class, gender, sexuality, and so on. This approach pushes ethics beyond theory and into practice, particularly in areas that traditional approaches expect that we as whole have “moved beyond.”

What insights does De La Torre offer about doing ethics from the margins? How might this reshape our ethical thinking?

De La Torre similarly pushes ethics from theory to practice by starting from the view of the marginalized, not the privileged. By equating the view from the margins with Christ, De La Torre creates an imperative for Christian ethicists to examine the power structures that hold privilege in place and the ways in which justice and wholeness are denied to those on the margins. This reshapes our thinking from “Why is the world the way it is?” to “What must be made different to put us in right relationship with each other and with God?”

How might your experiences of "otherness" and understanding of your social location influence your approach to building collaborations across boundaries of difference in Christian ethics? What challenges and opportunities do you foresee in this process?

For me, it is important to begin this work by acknowledging that my social location as a white, financially comfortable, educated woman is one of privilege. Therefore, I must approach building collaborations across boundaries from a place of listening to and working to earn trust from those who have no reason to extend that trust. In most work, my place is to amplify the voices from the other side of the boundary and to address critique and criticism from those on my side. It is not my place to believe I have the answers when I have not truly lived within the issues; that is both a challenge and an opportunity.

Christian Ethics - Week 2 - Reflection - Ogundipe

1.     How does West's "disruptive" approach to Christian ethics challenge traditional methods?
2.     What insights does De La Torre offer about doing ethics from the margins? How might this reshape our ethical thinking?
3.     How might your experiences of "otherness" and understanding of your social location influence your approach to building collaborations across boundaries of difference in Christian ethics? What challenges and opportunities do you foresee in this process?

1

West’s “disruptive” approach to Christian ethics challenges traditional methods by advocating something quite reasonable. West sues for dialogue across various perspectives, she pushes for the integration of theory and practice, and she encourages us to delve into and not look away from the complex and difficult issues that most prominently shape our lives and the lives of the most marginalized.

2

For me, the critical insight from De La Torre is his contention that, “For the Bible to be taken seriously as a source of ethical guidance, we must examine the relationships that Jesus established. By examining the actions taken by Jesus toward others, a pattern emerges that can inform present-day praxis (p. 9).” This emphasis on relationships moves us away from a solely theoretical approach and more towards the complexity of lived experiences. It also moves us towards one of the critical emphases of Jesus’ teaching, the reality that the law and rules had failed humans and that love (agape) was required. Relationship with other humans and lifeforms moves us beyond rules and into relationship with the Spirit. This encounter and relationship is the wellspring of Christian ethics.

3

The experience of otherness and being at the margins definitely influences one's approach to collaboration. How can we help but be molded by our position and experiences? The beauty in the challenge of being othered is flexibility. Those are the margins and those that are othered have found a way to connect against many odds, they must be adept at effective communication across boundaries to survive. Social realities push those situated in these spaces to praxis, as there is often less room for the fullness of themselves in strict orthodoxy. One of the challenges of “otherness” is the burden of actually proposing a different path and not succumbing to simply attempting to reverse roles. By this I am referring to Audre Lords “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”

The concept of “otherness” and social location plays an important role in how ethical collaboration is understood. Each person’s background—shaped by race, class, gender, culture, and lived experience—affects how they interpret the world and make moral decisions. These differences can create both opportunities and challenges when working across boundaries.